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Hello! I've been running a contest over on videogame art site Dead End Thrills (via Flickr) to find the best shots of combat in Skyrim. There are prizes! Nothing fancy, but a nice enough sweetener: the winner gets a copy of Dishonored for PC, and the runners-up get some quirky Dishonored ephemera (T-shirts, etc). And if you've got the game already there are limited run steelbook cases up for grabs. But anyway... It's just a bit of fun I thought would spice up the Flickr group I run alongside the website. I'm picking a shortlist of the best ten shots on Monday, then it's a public poll to decide the winners. Just thought I'd mention it here as there are some terrific screenshot artists at the Nexus who I'd love to see take part. If you've done shots already, feel free to just post your best. Best start here, I suppose: http://deadendthrills.com/2012/10/131012-announcing-the-dead-end-thrills-shootout/ Thanks!

I'm fed up with the extremely limited number of facial expressions currently available in Oblivion, even through mods. The complete lack of proper control over the eyes, for instance, is something Fallout 3 players overcame a long time ago thanks to Face Ache and such. Ultimately, I want to do a mod with dozens of proper facial expressions - like Face Ache but better. I know the basics of scripting the menu, building the mod and specifying the facial expressions in kf animations, but the whole eyes/eyebrows thing is a problem. It was a problem for Fallout, too, before Face Ache came along. So I need to know how to fix that. Face Ache used a custom skeleton.nif and a series of tweaked idle animations, but what it actually did to those files is beyond me. Any ideas?

Some folks over at the GAF forums asked me to do a modding guide after I posted some screenshots. I did, so I figured it'd be a waste not to at least share it here. It's for beginners, mostly, but does feature a lot of recommended mods and links. Basically, if you see the screens and want the game to look similar, it'll tell you how to do it. Someone might find it useful, at least. Linky http://deadendthrills.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/htlgm_oblivion_header.jpg

Some more: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/435063/fallout/fo75.jpg http://dl.dropbox.com/u/435063/fallout/fo76.jpg http://dl.dropbox.com/u/435063/fallout/fo77.jpg http://dl.dropbox.com/u/435063/fallout/fo78.jpg http://dl.dropbox.com/u/435063/fallout/fo79.jpg http://dl.dropbox.com/u/435063/fallout/fo81.jpg http://dl.dropbox.com/u/435063/fallout/fo80.jpg http://dl.dropbox.com/u/435063/fallout/fo82.jpg No plans for any perks just yet. Will add them to the Wasteland and provide a treasure map first, and maybe a mission to get that treasure map. Oh, and here's one at 1080p so you can gauge the quality: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/435063/fallout/fo83.jpg

I remember seeing something like this for Oblivion and thinking it was pretty cool, so I'm trying out some stuff in FO3. The idea is to scatter 100 different souvenir T-shirts in various nooks and crannies of the Wasteland, half of them lore-friendly and half not. First one has a festive feel to it... in the UK, anyway. :thumbsup: Oh, and they're at 2048x2048, so no problems with close-ups. http://dl.dropbox.com/u/435063/fallout/fo69.jpg http://dl.dropbox.com/u/435063/fallout/fo70.jpg http://dl.dropbox.com/u/435063/fallout/fo68.jpg http://dl.dropbox.com/u/435063/fallout/fo71.jpg http://dl.dropbox.com/u/435063/fallout/fo73.jpg http://dl.dropbox.com/u/435063/fallout/fo74.jpg

I wondered when someone would say that. :rolleyes:

Well, here's the helmet. sayouk and laffindude have both made vital contributions, and I'll have speak to them about whether they think this should be released. I'd like to think it would as it's far too nice to keep trapped on one PC, but if there's a genuine IP issue then I have to take that seriously (for my career, if not so much my conscience). It would be sad for it not to see the light of day, though. Whatever happens, there's a bit left to do before it's finished. Part of me thinks it would be great to have a larger suite of ME armours to choose from, so we'll just have to see. In the meantime, patience is a virtue. http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/435063/fo3vsme/helm.jpg

That's a really nice job you're doing with the helmet. As for the environment map, I'm pretty sure it uses the 'CubemapFace#' textures, though which go with which helmet is anyone's guess. I'd throw myself into sorting it out but don't really have the time - and besides, you seem to be doing better than I could. I'm stuck on adding these decals anyway. That and removing the errant highlight down the centre of the suit. Out of interest, how are you doing the helmet textures? Are you using Bioware's method or just recolouring by hand? The camo texture suggests the former... EDIT: Apologies! You're absolutely right - that's not actually how the visors appear in-game. In fact, you're bang on the money. Nice job! http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/435063/fo3vsme/Mass_Effect6.jpg

Someone needs to read the first page of this thread, I think. Anyway, I foolishly thought I was well on the way to getting the extra decals working. I used some tutorials about creating 'empty' objects in Blender to add the decal, then realised the UV map wasn't involved and that the inf exporter was having none of it. I'm sure that's just the tip of the iceberg, too. :wallbash:

Looks great in thirdperson, though, at least at that distance.

Oh, absolutely. I'm not taking anything away from what the other guys did, and I'm sure when someone inevitably puts this out a lot of people will appreciate the work. I'm just trying to shed light on the disparity between the reference image and the current FO3 version, in case someone has the time and motivation to improve it. EDIT: Incidentally, here's what I've done with mine. You'll notice the arms are now uniquely textured and the specular's improving. Next I'll learn how to do decals in Blender so I can restore the remaining details. http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/435063/fo3vsme/newarm2.jpg http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/435063/fo3vsme/newspec.jpg http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/435063/fo3vsme/newarm1.jpg

The problem with the helmets posted so far, beyond the textures not really doing justice to Bioware's without the various tints and overlays, is that the visors aren't using the environment map properly. Instead, they seem to be using it as a diffuse texture which is just creating a black, partially transparent surface. If you look at the reference shot in the OP, you'll notice that it's actually opaque and textured entirely by an environment map, much like Master Chief's. Sadly, I have neither the time nor skills to figure out how to do this in nifskope, let alone conjuring up a faithful texture for the rest of the helmet. Unlike the rest of the armour, much of the colouring and decal work for the helmets is done in-engine in Mass Effect, making this a pretty big job if you want to do it properly.

I appreciate the interest and apologise if it looks like I'm teasing - that's not my intent. As for hosting/distributing/sending the files, I simply can't do it. Not only do I work with games as a career, but I know that Bioware and EA, two notably litigious companies, value this particular bit of IP very highly. That probably has something to do with a) the imminent Mass Effect 2, and b) the release of this very armour on the Xbox Live Avatar Marketplace only the other week. So no, it won't be leaving my PC, and for more than just ethical reasons. Obviously, under different circumstances, I'd love to host it anywhere and everywhere so people could enjoy it. I know people have redistributed stuff from UT and Mirror's Edge, but it's not something I can advocate. (I am a bit of a hypocrite there: I did use those mods, though I also own the games.)

Phew. That was an effort. Just sorted out all the lightmaps and entered all the variants into the gameworld. http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/435063/fo3vsme/scorpion.jpg http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/435063/fo3vsme/gallery.jpg http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/435063/fo3vsme/Fallout3-2009-08-29-18-48-58-56.jpg

I guess this should only be used for reference given that it's Bioware's IP, but... tada! Big thanks to sayouk for getting it up and running in FO3. I spent much of this evening making a new hi-res normal map to better reflect the original. I guess the next thing would be the helmet. http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/435063/me4fo3.jpg Digital camo: http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/435063/me4fo3_b.jpg This could go on for a while... http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/435063/me4fo3_c.jpg http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/435063/me4fo3_d.jpg